Graphics created between April 1991 and February 2000 (GN00001-GN11500) were saved to Illustrator 3.2 format and compressed to .sea

Example filename GN10242C.sea

  • Filenames: Files saved to lllustrator 3.2 were given descriptive filenames such as “Bosnia sitrep” to make it easy for artists to know which file was which. But Illustrator on PCs (as against Macs) needed more structured names. Files after GN11500 therefore had numerical filenames with suffixes such as .ai similar to those used today
  • Compression to .sea The Illustrator files were compressed with Aladdin’s Stuffit to give a file with a .sea suffix. These .sea files now have numerical filenames such as GN01002.sea. Don’t be disconcerted though if you expand one of these old files and discover a file with the original descriptive filename inside. Just edit the name to include a suffix and you will be able to open the file with Illustrator.
  • Colour: Pantone Matching system of spot colours was used rather than CMYK.
  • Headline Font: Helvetica Black used rather than Franklin Gothic Std Condensed, the headline font used today.
  • Information about the graphic (such as size, copyright, date of creation etc) was pasted below the graphic. Any associated story was pasted into the space beside the graphic.
  • Fileszie: Files were typically in the 30K-350K range so they would download with a 120K baud modem in less than ten minutes.

Using archive graphics